A sip of this deliciously creamy and smooth cup of coffee is sure to please even those non-coffee drinkers. Similar to the French cafe au lait and the Italian cappuccino, the Viennese melange is a combination of coffee with steamed milk and foam. Unlike cappuccino, this "Wiener Melange" is made with milder coffee and is traditionally served with a glass of water. The accompaniment of water allows the coffee to go down more easily without dehydration.

The experience of sitting in a plush Viennese café with a cup of Viennese coffee, a glass of water and a newspaper seems to awaken the intellect within you. It conjures up images of the Austrian intelligentsia in the early 20th century with characters like Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.

While in Vienna, I visited several Viennese cafés, such as the famous Café Central, and tried several variations on this deep rich coffee. My favorite, Franziskaner, also called an "espresso con panna," is served with whipped cream instead of foam. I also tasted rich delicious café mocha served with whipped cream. The Viennese café culture dates as far back as the late 17th century.

The influence of the melange on American coffee can be seen in Starbucks and several smaller coffeeshops. One of the best places to try the classic melange is Café Sabarsky located on the first floor of the Neue Galerie in Manhattan.

In my ever-increasing attempts to save money, I recently decided to cut back on my coffee expenditures. While I get most of my coffee from my local corner store, where it only costs $1.20 a cup, even that price starts to add up, particularly when I am hard-pressed to come up with something to write about and the caffeine monster beckons.

Choosing coffee isn't such an easy thing. I've tried quite a few brands, generally with mixed success. My wife swears by Illy, an Italian coffee that, I must admit, is damn near perfect. Still, at $12 per can, it's pricey and, given that I am a cream-and-sugar guy, its transcendent wonder is somewhat wasted on me.

I recently retried Café Du Monde, a New Orleans chicory-enhanced coffee that I used to love in college. I don't know if my tastes have changed, or if the coffee has gone downhill, but the last can I bought tasted like incinerated cat turds. Seriously, I don't want to be mean, but it was positively unholy. Bru, on the other hand, is a chicory blend with a solid taste and a good price point; unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to come by. If I'm going to get addicted to a brand, I need a consistent supply!

God knows, I resisted. The bizarre news that Starbucks will soon be releasing "VIA Ready Brew," an instant coffee line has been in the news for a few days now, but I've fought the temptation to attack the coffee retailer. After all, while I'm not a fan of Starbucks, there isn't really any joy in watching a company that built its reputation on the cafe experience sell out its customers for a quick buck. Mediocrity is depressing, even when it is undertaken by a huge, menacing corporation.

It's not like this hasn't been in the cards for a while. After all, the Starbucks marketing leviathan has long since squeezed out numerous independent retailers with its insane market saturation. Along the way, they have sold pretty much everything related to the coffee experience, from mugs to t-shirts, truffles to beans. In the past few years, the name "Starbucks" has become to coffee what McDonald's is to hamburgers, Kleenex is to tissues, and Roto Rooter is to septic systems: it is almost a generic term for a completely commodified service.

Still, I managed to resist the urge to attack Starbucks as they take this final step on the road to self-parody. However, when the company's CEO, Howard Schultz, tried to justify the decision in an editorial on the Huffington Post, I couldn't hold back any longer. Anyone who enjoys watching a corporate tool use self-important business-speak to justify an untenable decision should definitely give it a peek. Schultz begins with a brief analysis of the huge instant coffee market, followed by an explanation of how the chain's core audience will love the new product line. For a final flourish, Schultz ends with a strangely out-of-touch analysis of the company's patrons.

Have you ever gone into Starbucks in the morning and found yourself wishing that the ubiquitous coffee seller offered a combo meal, akin to those you can get at McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts? Well, soon that particular wish will come true!

Howard Schultz, company CEO, announced on Tuesday that beginning soon, they'll be offering a variety of "breakfast pairings" at "attractive" prices. Starbucks revenues have decreased dramatically in recent months and so they're taking a number of steps in order to stem the tide of these losses, including closing of 300 stores and ceasing to brew decaf after 12 noon.

Speculators say that the decision to introduce these "breakfast pairings" was also motivated by the increased competition from McDonald's, as the hamburger giant has rolled out premium coffee drinks over the last 18 months.

What do you think? Would you be more likely to order a full breakfast from Starbucks if you could just say, "Give me a number one!"?

Last summer, Starbucks announced that they were going to close 616 under-performing stores across 44 states and the District of Columbia. At that time, they attributed the closures to over-expansion and the slowing economy.

Unfortunately, the economy has continued to worsen over the last six months and so Starbucks has determined that they need to close 300 more stores and cut 6,700 additional jobs in order to improve their financial outlook. It breaks out to 6,000 retail and 700 non-store jobs. They haven't yet released the list of locations that they'll be closing, but analysts expect to see the names of those stores in the coming days.

Do you have a Starbucks lover on your holiday shopping list this year? If you do, you're going to want to get yourself over to a Starbucks store sometime in the next couple of days, because they are having a big old sale. Starting Tuesday, December 9th, all merchandise (this means tea, coffee, mugs, coffee makers, gift packs, ornaments and other 'bucks ephemera) will be 20 percent off. The sale runs through Sunday, December 14th.

Sadly, the bargains do not include your morning cup of java, baked goods, gift cards, newspapers, sandwiches or other in-store edibles.

Unsnobbycoffee.com sounds like it might be something really good for your dad or uncle who still can't pronounce "grande" and thinks "frappuccino" is a made-up word (and to be fair, "frappuccino" is a made-up word, by Boston's The Coffee Connection chain which was bought by Starbucks).

Actually, unsnobbycoffee.com is the website for McDonalds' new ad campaign.

"McDonald's has made it simple and easy to get the delicious espresso drinks you crave. No crazy names or sizes. No second language required. So hang out and have some fun."

What? McDonald's wants to be a coffee house?

For more than a year now, Starbucks has been working on improving their breakfast offerings. In spring of 2007, they launched a line of breakfast sandwiches, only to announce a year later that they were pulling them from the stores (they then changed their minds again, announcing that they were only going to retool the sandwiches). Earlier this summer, they started selling a line of whole grain pastries, cups of "perfect oatmeal" and a platter that lives in the refrigerated case that contains a hard boiled egg, a small whole wheat bagel, a few slices of cheese and some fruit.

This morning, they launched the latest addition to the breakfast line-up. Called the Piadini, this savory breakfast pastry comes in two varieties - Portobello Mushroom or Sausage, Egg and Cheddar. Energized by a Starbucks-led breakfast and coffee pairing event I attended last week, I stopped by my local Starbucks today to try out this new breakfast option.

Has anything we eat or drink infiltrated our cultural vernacular as thoroughly as coffee? Maybe coffee can't help itself: just as caffeine enters our bloodstream, perhaps so must coffee itself work its way through our culture. Whatever your position in the dialogue over chain coffee houses versus the local coffee place, here is a cup of hot coffee culture to start your day.

Read about it. If you watch AMC's Mad Men, you just learned that a cup of joe is called that after Joe Martinson, a New York City street coffee vendor who went on to found one of the lynchpin coffee businesses of the early twentieth century. Like most urban legends, there is no definitive proof that we actually got the saying from Joe Martinson, but it's a great story, as is the story of coffee itself. Mark Pendergrast 's Uncommon Grounds: the History of Coffee and How it Transformed Our World takes you through the global coffee scene, from the inception of coffee trading through American mass marketing. If you'd rather enjoy a good novel with your latte, then try David Liss' The Coffee Trader or Cleo Coyle's coffeehouse mystery series.

Continue Reading Coffee compendium . . .

Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter picks up his second restaurant, Monkey Bar. His first, the Waverly Inn, has been luring a high wattage crowd for two years, despite not being officially open.

L.A.'s fast food moratorium raises questions about choice and personal responsibility.

The Minimalist makes chapati, Indian flat bread.

A recipe for slow-cooked green beans.

Eric Asimov sips the crisp white wines of Spain.

Specialty coffee roasters hit New York.

Over the years, I've had a love/hate relationship with coffee. On the one hand, when I worked in a cafe/bakery, the free, unlimited chocolate-covered espresso beans made it a lot easier to bake bread all night. On the other hand, when I developed acid reflux, coffee was the first thing that had to go. Over the years, I've repeatedly reunited with coffee, only to leave it again a few months later. Between warnings about digestion, blood pressure, and various other problems, I've learned to fight my deep love of the beloved elixir, settling instead for water or tea. Right now, I'm drinking one or two cups a day, which seems to be working well, although I have to fight my feelings of guilt and fear with every sip.

Recently, however, a 24-year study by the University of Madrid has given me hope that coffee and I might be able to enjoy a rich, guilt-free relationship. According to Esther Lopez-Garcia, the lead researcher, the scientists have discovered that up to six cups of coffee per day may have a positive effect on one's health. According to their data, coffee seems to lower the chances of heart disease and other illnesses.

The study, which followed the coffee-drinking habits 84,214 American women from 1980 to 2004 and 41,736 American men from 1986 to 2004 showed clear linkages between reduced heart disease and coffee consumption, although it was also clear that decaf had almost the same results as caffeinated coffee. Although I won't be able to drink the full six cups of coffee that the study seems to endorse, it's nice to know that my little 2-cup habit may actually be good for me. The only question remaining is what I'll use to toast the researchers: French Roast or something a little milder?

As Shayna (and every major media outlet) noted a couple weeks ago, Starbucks is going to be closing just over 600 stores (616 to be exact) over the next year. Yesterday, they announced which stores, across 44 states and the District of Columbia, are going to get the axe. California, Florida, New York and Texas are losing the highest number of stores. The list on the Huffington Post is searchable, which makes it easy for you to check out and see if your local store will be closing.

News agencies all over the country have been reporting the news. Starbucks, the coffee mega giant, is closing around 600 stores!

Most analysts blame it squarely on the company's over-expansion and a slowing economy. Starbucks has opened too many stores too close to each other, and that proximity has hurt the profits considerable. According to the Word of Mouth Blog from the Guardian, 70% of the stores being closed were opened in the last 18 months. Add to that the fact that people just don't have the extra cash to shell out on a luxury latte and Starbucks had a recipe for disaster.

The 600 stores represent about 5% of Starbucks' American stores. No word on whether they'll close any overseas outlets. According to reports, international expansion is apparently, still very much part of the plan.

There seems to be a lot of Starbucks news over the last few months. Here's some more, anyway.

It seems that Starbucks not everyone was happy about the switch to the Pike Place roast coffees. The Consumerist reports that the coffee chain got a lot of requests for consumers for the older, stronger roast coffees. Apparently some people likened the old roast style as having a burnt flavor, while the new Pike Place roast is much milder.

Anyway, the public demanded and Starbucks has conceded. They'll begin selling both varieties of coffee in stores that make fresh coffee all day. So if you're going to Starbucks for a leisurely weekend coffee, you can have your pick between the old and the new.

Last May, I was invited to a press tasting at one of my local Starbucks, to try out their new breakfast sandwiches and the warming program. Over the course of two hours, I tried four different sandwiches, a warm chocolate cookie and a bagel that had gone for a ride through the warming oven as well. The woman who was presenting was passionate about these sandwiches and her energy was infectious. By the time I left I was ready to eat my breakfast at Starbucks every day!

Of course, I didn't end up eating there every day (I think I've had just one breakfast sandwich from Starbucks since that morning) and as it has turned out, neither did most other Americans. Back in February, word broke that they will be phasing out the breakfast sandwiches come fall. And now, Denny Marie Post, the top executive in charge of food and beverages at the coffee giant has left the company. They haven't filled the slot yet and appear to be looking for someone who can come up with new food that will be tasty and compelling enough to drive flagging sales.

[via Consumerist]